Internet Explorer: Cannot type in a field

May 14, 2009

Something very weird happened the other day. I use both Firefox 3.x and Internet Explorer 7 (IE7). I prefer Firefox, but some things are designed for IE (like Microsoft Partner pages, and a link to a client’s system), so there are occasions when I have to use IE.

When I opened IE7 that day, I got some message about an add-on not being compatible. That was the first weird thing — I’ve never seen any messages about IE add-ons, ever.

Then when I went to enter a search term into Google, or enter anything into any field on any website, nothing happened. I couldn’t see the marker for the cursor position in any field and I couldn’t type in any field.

The mouse worked, command buttons worked, and I could enter an web address at the top, but I couldn’t type in any field on the screen. I closed and re-opened IE7, I looked under Tools > Manage Add-ons to see if there was anything there that showed some sort of error. Nothing.

I have a machine with the similar problem with a machine running IE7. I registered the DLL and now I can type into data entry fields. However, I have other things going on with this machine. I can not access Tools-> Options. I get a popup saying access is restricted. In addition, the Internet Options ICON is missing in Control Panel. Also, if I run, inetcpl.cpl nothing appears to happen. I’m also getting scripting errors when I use the Group Policy snapin in the MMC or try creating a System Restore point. I believe all this to be related.

Just used this to fix a users machine that had been re-formated and updated. was a dell vostro laptop that we shipped to the user. Had never seen anything like this before. Other searches didn’t return anything helpful. EXTREMELY glad I found this as it worked like a charm. why in the world this would be something that would happen in the first place I have no idea. Thanks a ton!